Vendors are pulled in both directions, supporting both the needs of brokers and their employer clients, and these can be choppy waters to navigate.

Increasingly, to be given the opportunity to solve an organization's benefits challenges, brokers also have to provide advice and solutions for the rest of the prospect's HR concerns.

To be an educated buyer of a benefits and HR solution, it's worth becoming familiar with an ongoing shift in this corner of the tech industry, and how it's shaping the product roadmap of platform vendors.

Helping employer clients expand benefits in the context of recruiting and retaining talent in the middle of a red-hot economic environment can present a valuable strategy for brokers looking to create agency growth.

Making sure clients and prospects understand how auto-adjudication affects their costs can lead to more groups willing to pursue alternative strategies that provide more transparency.

As benefits administration providers vie for market share and brokers continue to make the move online to meet employer demand, these trends will continue to affect the benefits industry throughout the rest of the year and into 2019.

Here are three steps brokers can take now to improve sales, grow the pipeline and win new business before the fourth quarter.

Even if you don't plan to make short-term plans a core component of your strategy, you can prepare now to give good advice to key clients with whom you have an important relationship.